re: #107 kreyagg

I see people trying to ward off an unwarranted attack in international waters with improvised weapons.

Sigh.

Yet another moron.

Nonviolent action means just that.

When I was much, much younger, I took part in such action in a foreign country where I was a student.

It was the 1980s, I lived in Germany, and I was sick of pointless marching demonstrations against what I considered to be the very bad idea of installing Pershing II intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Central Europe.

So instead of attending yet another shuffling demo with signs, groups of us went to “blockade” the Army bases where the missiles were going to be stationed. By sitting down in front of the gates with nothing but our bodies.

We had extensive training beforehand. We learned the history of such nonviolent actions as used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. We learned how to go limp so the police would have a harder time dragging us to the paddy wagons. Occasionally our groups would be infiltrated by some stupid young bravos who wanted to bring slingshots and take a more militant stand. We threw them out.

We did not, when the time came, decide that we were being “attacked” by the police and look for stones and sticks in the woods so we could stage a last-ditch act of “self-defense”. The entire point of nonviolent direct action is to show that you are defenseless, but still right. There were journalists there with cameras and we were hauled away under the glare of media scrutiny, booked, and tried in court for obstruction of private property. We went to court and gave our speeches and were sentenced. And the Germans didn’t even think about harming me or kicking me out of the country. Many of them, including many in the legal system, were highly sympathetic.

We did not pump ourselves up with talk of jihad beforehand, or secrete things about our persons that could be used as weapons, or try to teach the police a “lesson”. We were the lesson in what we did.

If the “humanitarians” on board that ship had acted accordingly, I could respect them for that.

I certainly do not respect you for confusing them with nonviolent protesters.